stared at her with a kind of stupid surprise.

"Is that the way you get fish?" she asked.

"Yes, and seals; father gets them," he said.

"Oh, what's that swimming out there?"

"That's a white bear," he said coolly; "we had better get home."

Lucy thought so indeed; only where was home?--that puzzled her.
However, she trotted along by the side of her companion, and
presently came to what might have been an enormous snow-ball, but
there was a hole in it. Yes, it was hollow; and as her companion
made for the opening, she saw more little stout figures rolled up
in furs inside. Then she perceived that it was a house built up of
blocks of snow, arranged so as to make the shape of a beehive, all
frozen together, and with a window of ice. It made her shiver to
think of going in, but she thought the white bear might come after
her, and in she went. Even her little head had to bend under the
low doorway, and behold, it was the very closest, stuffiest, if
not the hottest place she had ever been in! There was a kind of
lamp burning in the hut; that is, a wick was floating in some oil,
but there was no glass, such as Lucy had been apt to think the
chief part of a lamp, and all round it squatted upon skins these
queer little stumpy figures dressed so much alike that there was
no knowing the men from the women, except that the women had much
bigger boots, and used them instead of pockets, and they had their
babies in bags of skin upon their backs.